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The Thing from Another World Reviews

Well-acted but not very well written, The Thing From Another World is good, but doesn't hold up very well. It's not very faithful to the book, but holds up pretty well on its own. The story is a bit ridiculous, but the film is surprisingly scary regardless.

it was better than i expected.i like how they took the acting seriously unlike the others 50's sci-fi.the visual effects were also amazeballs.i also got "at the mountain of madness"-vibe at the first act of the movie.and it is indeed fun and entertaining!

the only thing i don't like is the thing (no pun intended) were too much frankenstein monster-esque.

Far superior to the remake. A fantastic sci-fi classic. A delight to have finally seen it. Amazing action & suspense. Great story & build-up. I love the whole claustrophobic feel. The cold, distant, isolated setting really adds to the intensity & the pressure of it. Reminiscient of The Shining in this way. I was hesitant to watch it at first due to the bland, uniform setting. Little did I know that it would actually be a primary strength of the film. The captain was great. The initial reveal of the creature was actually pretty intense. The confrontation with it in the room seemed like an extraordinarily dangerous scene to film. Yet it looked good.The final confrontation with it was legitimately worrisome.The ending of the emotional, liberal, alien-sympathizer meeting his blood-feeding friend weaponless in a final act of diplomacy & understanding was cathartic. Though it would've been infinitely more dramatic if he ended up killed by his would-be friend he was playing hero to. And if he was to survive, he should've at least enunciated some moral realization. Maybe he's being given some credit for at least a 'brave' attempt at making peace (though it seems the murders of colleagues might've given him some hint as to the viability of that conviction). Maybe it's assumed that he will due to his obvious understanding of a need for recovery from suffering terrible wounds & mental fatigue all throughout. But the fact that he didn't, and in fact was given CREDIT in their victory (which he was opposed to) is the one major flaw in this film.This movie is the anti-Avatar. Humans are good guys, aliens are bad. Alien-sympathizers are dangerous accomplices, not heroes.

Rant/Social Commentary: I continue to be amazed at the consistency of the 'misanthropic, morally superior, condescending, stoic scientist' in even older films. And yet always the assumption of benevolency on the part of the 'wiser' aliens. The misunderstood supermen only require the communication of scientists, & it will see there is no more need for bloodshed. Yet the military rightly understands that the life of a human is not worth the knowledge that the alien can provide. The man of science cannot see this past his own self-obsessed pursuits (who would in no way sacrifice his OWN life for the attainment of this knowledge for the 'betterment' of mankind). Even after numerous killings, he deems it 'harmless'. The only crimes are those committed against it, believes the scientist. Aligning himself with the foreigner, in opposition to his own people & culture (in this case, the military), and their safety & security. A wonderful analogy for the leftist/communist symapthizer, for which these creatures were likely a metaphor. Present then & present now. Those pointing out the threat are deemed fear-mongers while the lives continue to fall one by one. Contrary to some critics, this is not about a "conflict between between Force and Reason." That is a false dichotomy. And this very mindset that inaction against a violent entity is reason (the same that the scientist adheres to) proves itself to be absurd in this very film. Reason is not divorced from force. Reason dictates that when a being feeds off of the blood of a host organism and will stop at nothing to attain its nourishment, it is threatening! But of course, killing & feeding off of mulitiple bodies is not enough to persuade some that intentions are anything but benign. This is the same mentality that some have had toward the Soviet communists after watching Stalin massacre more people than perhaps any other in history.While the scientist claims that knowledge is more important than life, there IS no knowledge without life. We owe it to our species to die so that greater knowledge can survive, he says. Yet what is the virtue in more & more people dying, until the whole world dies only so that this source of wisdom can remain well fed? Folly. I kept hoping he was next to be killed so that he could have his wish & wisdom could remain.In addition to this, there's the annoying journalist who thinks HIS story (and, of course, the recognition it would bring him) are more important than anything -- regardless of the safety of other humans. For example, when the group is told that two men are dead & hanging upside down, he shouts out, "Wait for me!... I wanna get a picture!" Enough said. These are generally the characters I like to see bite it most. Unfortunately, in 21st century movies (cf. Avatar), the result is very different. The mentality of the scientist is exactly the same. But his presentation as moral compass is much different. The foreign entity & the wiser-than-thou scientists unite to turn against & defeat the stated oppressor -- the military. The sympathizer is not shown to be treacherous, naive, self-serving, or dangerous anymore. Rather now, the scientist who deemed his own people as the true criminals is justified & his betrayal is portrayed as righteous. And the violent reactions of the aliens as always adequately proportionate, no matter how violent. This says something to me about a devastating change of culture 50-some odd years later.(Granted, the circumstances were different in that the Navi were less violent than veggie man, and it was on THEIR planet, But one is hardly pressed to believe that the portrayed scientific elite would've seen things on earth with a more violent species much differently. I think the portrayal of us an invaders was intentional to get this point across that WE can be seen as violent, evil aliens too.)

Additional Observations: That said, if the intention was to portray these characters as so annoying, then the actors must be given some credit.I also found the female lead quite annoying.I love how the whole premise is that it's not hard to understand an immortal vegetable man if you buy the idea that worms becoming humans eventually is a great explanation of our being here. lol. Well, since I don't, then it makes it a little more difficult to accept the vegetable man.I also love that in preparing to confront it, they believe the less light the better. Really, it's simply a way of saying "let's make this scene scarier!" I accept it.

The Thing from Another World does have a very clichéd doctor character plus the horror elements should have been much more emphasized, but this is still a pretty good sci-fi film with excellent technical aspects, intriguing location, interesting alien choices and a superb second half. It isn't as great as the remake, but it's still a good film in its own right.

Contrary to most other people's feelings, I didn't like this film. I had the pleasure and enjoyment to be in a position to view all 3 films, one after another. And as a result, I did. Now, I have never read the book that the film is based on, but I read editorials about these films and how closely one film or another relates to the book. The book titled "Who Goes There?" is basically about an outer world being landing on the planet killing off a remote settlement team in Antarctica by transforming and taking the place of anybody and can do so multiple times at the same time.

There will be of course more to the book than that, including characters, setting and plot nuances. But the film or films that follow the story more closely are the 82 film and it's 11 prequel. That's not to say this is a bad film or so because they chose to loosely follow the story. No, not at all. The film plays into the era in which it is film. The year is 1952 and there is peace and prosperity during the roaring era following the 2nd World War.

Instead of Antarctica, we have Alaska. Instead of a crazy being from outer space cloning and killing folks, we still have an out of world being, but more of which is a seemingly indestructible monster. Okay, it's different. Okay, it's a slasher sort-of before the genre ever came to be. But it's a generally annoying clueless monster that just makes grunting noises and goes on a killing spree.

The film contains way too much dialogue and becomes very monotonous and very boring, very quickly. Eventually, it's like come on....is anything ever going to happen? The film strangely enough doesn't even with the taking care of the monster, but still continues a little longer. The last 15 minutes of the film are the best scenes in the entire film. The monster creature looked like some cross between the Frankenstein monster and the people from The Hills Have Eyes. I wasn't impressed and as a result, this is easily the worst of the 3 films.

The Thing From Another World: This 1951 B-movie, about a research team in the Arctic that stumbles upon a UFO and its alien pilot, is THE predecessor for all alien monster movies. Although hokey by modern standards, it maintains a decent level of suspense and terror, thanks to good pacing, clever dialogue and a kickass score. A

I had no idea that there was a movie adaptation of this novella that predates the 1982 version; it was interesting to see the 50's take on the tale. It isn't as arresting or memorable, but the story is still very creepy and effective.

The Thing From Another World. It's not very scary (James Arness really does look like a Carrot-Man whenever he appears), and in the last reel the scientist character gets to become cliche and over-the-top. But up until then it has a lot of really strong character building and the over-lapping dialog Hawks was known for in his films makes the situation realistic and compelling - I also liked how characters tried to use *logic* in this situation. After so many horror/science fiction movies where characters act dumb and unreasonable, it was nice to see something where people talked out things and it was actually interesting too; a lot of credit I give too to Lederer's script (with assist from Faulker?!) which even gives little moments like that between the Captain and the one gal at the station, Nikki, some nice dialog where we actually feel these are people in this situation. I do still prefer Carpenter's 1982 version just for how it's a perfect horror film, but the Hawks production hasn't aged as badly as I had thought it might; for those who don't like long stretches of dialog it might seem boring but, honestly, it really is more interesting than it had any right to be. A near-classic.